Rigel Michelena - Bartók's Room

Artist:	Rigel Michelena
Title:	Bartók's Room
Label:	Musea FGBG 4377.AR
Length(s):	49 minutes
Year(s) of release:	2001
Month of review:	[10/2001]

Line up

Rigel Michelena - electric and steel string acoustic guitars, keyboards, sequencing, drum programming, percussion and everything else except
Oscar Fanega - bass on 2,3,6,9
Miguel Blanco - bass on 1,4,9
Yoncarlos Medina - keyboards on 1,5,9
Javier Saume - drums on 3
Yudnara De Ridder - vocals on 6
Guillermo Diaz - narraton on 10

Tracks

1)	Artilugio (florilegio Artefactio)	8.30
2)	I	4.45
3)	El Ojo-dido	4.47
4)	Song For Bartók	7.00 MP3 or RealAudio
5)	Inside	5.21
6)	Twiggy Pig	5.10
7)	The Last Dodo Bird	2.36
8)	Street Jam (jam-eo En La Calle)	3.30
9)	Uranus	5.01
10)	Final Chat: Colubre	2.32

Summary

Rigel Michelena from Venezuela used his cats (Bartok) room to record his album now released on Musea.

The music

The first track sets the record straight right away: here we have a warm brand of jazzrock with lots of stereo effects going on in my headphones. Plenty of dark bass and also bubbly marimba like sounds alternate with a varied palette of guitar: rather typical jazz rock guitar, repetitive groovy guitar, a more meandering type and a dissonant kind of guitar as well. In addition I hear some vague echoes of early Camel. The keyboards on this rather groovy track are of the swirly seventies jazz rock kind.

The next one up is I. This track continues along the same line, but not as groovy. The groove returns on El Ojo-Dido where we also find a funky bass and a meandering harsh sounding guitar as well.

The next one is a song for the cat: it opens with quick fingered acoustic guitar with moody twangings. A piece that a cat might actually like with low warm sounds. We continue with the slow ballad Inside which features guitar and (non-disturbingly) electronic drums.

Twiggy Pig is a rather off-beat track but one in which the groove sounds a bit familiar. The sound continues to be warm and spacious and the rhythms can be quite modern sounding. The bass seems to be the main instrument at first, but later the electric guitar throws in some hectically meandering guitar work best compared with later King Crimson.

The Last Dodo Bird is a rather complex sounding piece with the main role for guitar playing a rather baroque piece in the presence of a low rumbling bass and active percussion. Quite a bit of fiddling around on this one, and because of it the music does not really flow.

Latin percussion abounds on Street Jam, as well as some acoustic strumming and people clapping and shouting. A street atmosphere is being built here.

One of the more focussed track on the album is the rocking Uranus with tense guitar work (a bit of King Crimson, a bit of Holdsworth here). Parts of the track are more relaxed with some wailing keyboards and later some wailing guitar. My personal favourite on the album.

The closer is the short Final Chat, which is more like a Final Scat. I don't like it.

Conclusion

Adventurous jazzrock, eloquently and refreshingly played with a strong focus on warm intimate moods, but sometimes dissonant and harsh as well. The instrumentalists are masters of their instruments, it sounds really good. The music is at times maybe a bit too free of form and it is my feeling that the album is mostly interesting to lovers of jazz rock (but mind you, that the music is a bit more adventurous as that). Melody does not always gets the attention that it maybe should, but the groove is strong as a compensation.